Jaswant, not-so original - C M Naim,

The book may have been ‘researched’ by an assiduous team, but the book carries Singh’s name as its author. He is responsible for everything included in it. Further, by putting his name on the cover, Singh lays claim to the authorship of all the book’s contents, unless otherwise indicated — i.e. properly ascribed to someone and duly acknowledged as a quotation. Similarly, the job of any book editor or publisher worth the name is to ensure accuracy and consistency in the text, and a full acknowledgment of other people’s wherever needed.Sad to say, that is not the case here. I have found several cases in the footnotes and endnotes where huge chunks have been copied word-for-word from some source available on the web, with absolutely no acknowledgment of the source.(When The Indian Express contacted Mehra, he declined to comment on the lifting of text while Jaswant Singh was unavailable for comment. When contacted, IAS officer and former aide to the author, Raghvendra Singh, thanked by Singh in the acknowledgments as “relentlessly searching out new books, new sources and references,” said: “What can I say?”). Jaswant, not-so original - C M Naim [thanks FK]